Trees are nice that line our street. I remember when the city first planted them. Everyone thought there was enough space between the road edge and the sidewalks that the roots from the trees would never cause a problem. Well, the road has had bumps and has been resurfaced a couple of times since the trees grew huge, and most of the sidewalks are in poor shape. I had to call sidewalk contractors in Bronx NY to have our sidewalks replaced. The city took care of the roads. The property owners take care of the sidewalks.

We had to get rid of the trees and pretty much have some major excavation done to clean out the roots that have been buckling and cracking the sidewalks. Some of the buckling is a foot high! It is an extreme trip hazard. If someone falls, then the liability insurance of the homeowner pays. It does not matter who planted the trees initially. The repair and maintenance of the sidewalks is the responsibility of the property owners.

We have a lot more people walking and riding bikes and jogging now than we have had for as long back as I can remember. I can remember as a child having more kids playing outdoors, but now we have families walking together and riding bicycles. Lots of people are walking their dogs too. Not all of them leave messes to clean up. I want to have nice level sidewalks for people to enjoy in front of my house. There is that weird half ownership thing with public sidewalks. Homeowners have to keep them up, but you have to let anyone walk on them. Sure, I would really like it if people would always clean up after their dogs, but I can’t stop them from walking by the house on the sidewalk. I will just make it nice again, plant some trees that do not grow really tall and hope that the new concrete sidewalks last for many decades.

I have been looking at the possibility of relocating to the San Angelo area of Texas. The company has a job down there and it is a fair opportunity, but I have to pick up and move. The thing looks a lot like a gamble in reality, because there would be a wager involved on my part. I would be hoping that I could go down there and get my self one rung up the ladder and then work my way higher up. I have been looking for an explanation of something I found out when I was checking in to the details of moving to this area. That is the fact that you can apparently pick and choose your electric company down there. From what I can tell there is about three or four different choices in any particular place that you might pick. So you can find a web page and plug in your zip code, it will let you figure out what your rates are and who you get to pick between.

At any rate I have no clue what you look for in a power company or even if there is any difference between the one and the other. In High Point NC you want to get your power hooked up, then you call Duke Power. It is all that there is to it. They have the monopoly and so there is not anything for you to think about. If you want power you have to get it from them and that is all that there is to it. I am wondering if you can count on any of them to show up sooner when you have a problem. Obviously there are going to be storms and the power will go out, the big deal is getting it back on.

I found a helpful website that assisted me in changing to a new energy provider. I usually don’t switch from a service unless they are truly terrible and don’t offer any attempts to redeem themselves. My old energy provider was one of the worst providers out there, and their service wasn’t that cheap either. I would often call to complain about either the service itself or about the price of the service. Their customer service didn’t do anything to help, and essentially sent me through a series of never ending forwards from one to the next. I eventually was able to speak to the person in charge, and he told me that if I wasn’t pleased with their service, I could always find an alternative, and that’s what I did.

When I tried to cancel my service with the company, they were every apologetic and wanted to do anything to keep me from leaving, but at that point, I had made up my mind. If only the company had been willing to be so flexible when I was actually a paying customer, then maybe I wouldn’t have needed to cancel their service in the first place. There’s not point trying to win over a customer after they’ve decided to leave.

Things are better with the provider I have now. There is a significant difference in the amount I pay for energy on my bill now than when I was with my old provider. I haven’t experienced any problems with the service either. I’ve told everyone I know that if they aren’t already a customer of this company, they should be. I’ve gotten a few people to switch over to this provider, and because of it, the company has actually offered a credit on my bill, which makes my payment even lower than before.

We have found us a little place about twenty minutes North of the center of San Antonio. It is a nice area and we have been looking at the things we need to do next. Right now I am looking at the cost of a home security system and how much it costs to monitor it after you buy it. I found this site, http://home-security.co/adt-home-security/texas/s/san-antonio/ and I am wondering how much more there is to it than meets the eyes. Obviously the number in the big letters is nice. I like the idea of paying 9 dollars a month for it, but it is not clear if there is a lot more to it or not. You have to wonder if that is one of those offers that is only good for a limited time. You see that from cable and Internet companies all of the time. They make you this deal that looks really awesome when you sign up for it, but you are getting yourself in to a long term deal and the initial monthly cost only lasts a few months or for one year out of a 2 year agreement.

In this case it talks about the initial cost of the system and says something about 99 dollars, but I am trying to figure out if that is the bottom line or if that is addition to what the system costs you. I sort of think that the 99 dollars is like a minimum fee, even if you already had your own home security system you would have to pay that much more to get the monthly offer. Of course it is not that great of an offer if that is the way that it is, but I have to look closely and see what they mean.